Beyond Ordinary

ANGEL ENTERED BERNICE’S Beauty Salon.

Bernice was a good person—she’d never looked down on Angel.

“Hey, honey,” Bernice said with a smile, stopping the sweeping she’d been doing and resting one hand on her ample hip. “Haven’t seen you in a while, Angel. How’s school?”

It had been good, but had ended badly. Angel’s smile felt sickly, but she hoped it looked normal. “Good. I’m home for the summer and then heading to the city for a job.”

Angel looked around. The shop hadn’t changed one bit in the time she’d been gone. Red geraniums dotted the windowsill and a monster jade plant stood in one corner.

“You getting your hair cut?” Bernice asked.

Angel shook her head.

“Good. Don’t think Missy or the men in town would like that much.” She laughed.

“Bernice, I’m here about the job you have open.”

Bernice’s smile fell. “Honey, I hired a girl yesterday.”

From the back of the room, a teenager Angel recognized, but whose name she couldn’t remember, stepped out with another woman and walked her to a salon chair.

When the woman unwrapped the towel from her wet hair, she looked at Angel. Her mouth fell open, then quickly closed.

“Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in. Angel Donovan. What are you doing in town?”

Elsa. Scotty’s daughter. Scotty owned the hardware store. The town liked him, but disliked his daughter.

Elsa had hated Angel in high school, even though Angel had been a few years behind her. Didn’t matter. Boys and men of any age were attracted to Angel.

Angel tipped her head and smiled. If it felt a little mean, so be it. This was Elsa, after all, herself the meanest woman in town.

“My mama lives here, in case you’ve forgotten.” Angel turned toward the front door.

Before she could open it, Elsa said, “William married me, you know.”

Angel turned back. “That’s nice.”

“We have three beautiful children and a perfect life.”

“Fine, Elsa. Let’s get it all out now, ’cause I’ll be in town for the summer and I’m not taking crap from you for the next three months.” She stood, arms akimbo. “To confirm what you’ve always suspected, Bill and I made out one night after a football game.”

Elsa’s face contorted into a mask of rage. “Proving you’re no better than your mother.”

“Who were you? Snow White? You’d been dating Bill for two years—you were still dating him—when you got busy with Matt Long and wound up pregnant. Behind Bill’s back. After that, he wanted revenge. You’re a hypocrite, Elsa, no better than any other woman in town, including me and Missy.”

Angel stomped out of the shop. She was so tired of the fight. It would never end as long as she lived in Ordinary. She stood on the sidewalk to get her rowdy anger under control, then crossed the street toward the diner.

When she stepped inside, the old familiar scents assailed her—bacon and eggs, grilled-cheese sandwiches, burgers.

Within seconds, all conversation seemed to stop.

Someone yelled, “Hey, Angel, when did you get back?”

Sam Miller sat in a booth across from the counter.

Angel walked over and leaned her hip against his table.

“Hey, Sam, how’ve you been?” Angel smiled at the three men with him even though she didn’t know them. By the glances skimming her body, they liked her. Men always did.

Except for Timm Franck.

So what? You don’t want him attracted to you anyway.

She’d been celibate since Neil and planned to keep it that way here in Ordinary. No men. No hanky-panky.

She wrapped up the pleasantries, then made her way to the cash register. George, cook and owner of the diner, asked her what she wanted to order.

There was a time when George had been one of Missy’s boyfriends, but that had changed once Angel had become a teenager and George had wanted to switch daughter for mother.

Both Missy and Angel had booted him out of the trailer and had told him to never come back.

He still gave her the creeps.

The words I’m here about the job stuck in her throat. Could she work here every day with George watching her the way he was looking at her now—with greed?

She almost decided to take the job so she could put him down the first time he tried to touch her, by “accident,” in passing, the way he used to before Angel learned how to fight back.

Man, she would enjoy giving him a piece of her mind.

She wasn’t in town to fight old fights, though, despite what had happened with Elsa. She was here for Mama, and she needed money to leave the second she got Phil out of her mother’s life.

“I changed my mind. I don’t want anything,” she muttered, then left the diner.

Fuming, she strode down the sidewalk to Chester’s Roadhouse, betting that he’d still have enough affection for her and her mom to give her a job.

She’d come home broke. She’d wasted her money on that bike, thinking that she would have her degree in a couple of months and would get a full-time job.

Then Neil…then Neil had—

Chester needed a bartender. Angel hadn’t gotten her degree, couldn’t do much else, but bartending was something she did really well. She made people happy.

A niggling feeling caught her unawares. Someone was watching her. She stopped before entering the bar and glanced around.

Timm crossed the street toward the diner, looking at her. When they made eye contact, he changed direction and approached her.

What could he possibly have to say to her that they couldn’t have said fifteen minutes ago in his office?

Sunlight did good things for Timm. It warmed his light brown hair to honey and highlighted that face that had matured into strong planes and angles.